Awaroa’s ‘hippie inheritance’
A Wellington lawyer has had to admit his professional objectivity deserted him for a case about the beautiful Awaroa Inlet at the top of the South Island.
New Zealanders crowdfunded to buy the beach at Awaroa in 2016, but back from the beach are privately owned properties controlled by strict planning laws.
Wellington journalist Catharine Mackenzie is one of the landowners. She wants better use of her land for co-operative living.
Her husband, lawyer Stephen Franks, stepped in at the eleventh hour to argue a planning appeal for her in the High Court at Wellington on Tuesday.
Franks admitted he had a strong personal interest in the case and his children regarded the land at Awaroa as their tu¯rangawaewae – a place where one has rights of residence and belonging through kinship and whakapapa.
There was a long history in the area of pushing to recognise the ‘‘hippie inheritance’’ of the district and regularise it, he said.
Some wanted the communes and informal groups of buildings brought out of the shadows to allow for more intensive use of land without subdivision.
One example was the Athfield block, the biggest property and originally owned by six families, on which the late Wellington architect Ian Athfield had built a house that was one building but had a lot of units within it.
Athfield had developed a plan for tightly confined hamlets that would have preserved the character of the area, he said.
No-one wanted to subdivide conventionally, in a uniform or suburban way, Franks said.
Mackenzie and the owners of six other properties, calling themselves the Awaroa Inlet Group, made a submission on a Tasman District Council planning change.
The council said the submission was not within the scope of the change it was considering. Mackenzie appealed to the Environment Court, which reached the same decision.
The group’s properties, each of just over four hectares, were zoned rural residential ‘‘closed’’ so that they could not be subdivided.
Franks said they did not want to subdivide the land. They wanted generations or families to live cooperatively on blocks.
However, the council’s lawyer, Chris Thomsen, pointed out repeated references to ‘‘subdivision’’ in the notice of appeal to the Environment Court.
But it seemed to be agreed on Tuesday that the Environment Court had confirmed that a secondary dwelling up to 80m2, and two sleepouts up to 36m2, could be built on each property.
If the owners wanted permission for more it would have to wait for a planned review of rural residential zoning rules, or be pursued at a private planning change.
Justice Christine Grice reserved her decision on Mackenzie’s appeal against the Environment Court decision.